Scientists have developed a novel flu treatment that they believe holds the potential to protect against any strain of flu computer virus . The survey was lead by scientist at theUniversity of St Andrews , Scotland , and has been published in the journalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America .
Influenza attain globally every year . Although the grippe computer virus can taint anyone , new minor , grownup over the age of 65 and those with pre - existing medical term are particularly at risk of explicate complication as a result of infection . According to theWHO , annual epidemics cause between 3 - 5 million cases of stark sickness and claim approximately 250,000 - 500,000 liveliness . The growth of stress from avian sources is also of particular concern because of their potential power to cause pandemics .
Although some antiviral treatments exist for flu , such as Tamiflu , they are limited in their effectiveness due to flu ’s gamey mutability rate , and recentstudieshavesuggestedthat they may be a waste of money . Prevention is also better than treatment but vaccine take a long clock time to develop after new strains emerge . There has therefore been a pauperization to develop novel approach to tackle flu that can combat not only seasonal influenza but emerging grippe melodic phrase from animal sources also .
flu viruses bind to sensory receptor receive on cell within the respiratory tract which possess a sugar molecule calledsialic acid . To exploit this , the researchers developed saccharide - binding molecules that were specific for sialic acid , call biologics , which effectively blocked the influenza receptors , preventing the computer virus from entering the cubicle to originate replication .
Rather imposingly , mouse wereprotectedfrom deadly doses of the pandemic H1N1 flu computer virus when given a single intranasal dose of the treatment 7 days prior to challenge with the virus . What ’s also interesting is that the low level of viral reproduction that was still able to occur in these mice was sufficient to bring forth an resistant response . This paint a picture that the mice may be protect from future exposure to the same virus . The biologics also appeared to stimulate an incendiary response , which could be a contributing factor to their effectiveness .
Furthermore , this Modern treatmentmay be effectivein preventing other respiratory pathogens that also habituate sialic acid receptors for cell entry , although this has not been test yet .
“ We believe that our access has the potentiality to be used as a preventative against any current and new virus that emerges , such as H5N1 , H7N9 and the very recent H10N8,”said Professor Taylor , lead investigator of the study .
